The story of Abelard and Heloise remains one of the world's most dramatic and well-known love affairs. It is told through the letters of French philosopher Peter Abelard and his gifted pupil Heloise. Through their impassioned writings unfolds the story of a romance, from its reckless, ecstatic beginnings to the public scandal, enforced secret marriage, and devastating consequences that followed. These eloquent and intimate letters express a vast range of emotions from adoration and devotion to reproach, indignation, and grief, and offer a fascinating insight into religious life in the Middl...View More...

"The Letters of John and Abigail Adams" provides an insightful record of American life before, during, and after the Revolution; the letters also reveal the intellectually and emotionally fulfilling relationship between John and Abigail that lasted fifty-four years and withstood historical upheavals, long periods apart, and personal tragedies. Covering key moments in American history-the Continental Congress, the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, and John Adams's diplomatic missions to Europe-the letters reveal the concerns of a couple living during a period o...View More...

In the Oresteia--the only trilogy in Greek drama which survives from antiquity-- Aeschylus took as his subject the bloody chain of murder and revenge within the royal family of Argos. Moving from darkness to light, from rage to self-governance, from primitive ritual to civilized institution, it's spirit of struggle and regeneration is eternal.
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Three masterpieces of classical tragedy Containing Aeschylus's "Agamemnon," Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex," and Euripides' "Medea," this important new selection brings the best works of the great tragedians together in one perfect introductory volume. This volume also includes extracts from Aristophanes' comedy "The Frogs" and a selection from Aristotle's "Poetics."
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The classic American novel, re-published for the 100th anniversary of James Agee's birth Published in 1957, two years after its author's death at the age of forty-five, "A Death in the Family" remains a near-perfect work of art, an autobiographical novel that contains one of the most evocative depictions of loss and grief ever written. As Jay Follet hurries back to his home in Knoxville, Tennessee, he is killed in a car accident?a tragedy that destroys not only a life, but also the domestic happiness and contentment of a young family. A novel of great courage, lyric force, and powerful emo...View More...

For the 150th anniversary of the birth of the "Jewish Mark Twain,"a new translation of his most famous works "Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantor's Son" are the most celebrated characters in all of Jewish fiction. Tevye is the lovable, Bible-quoting father of seven daughters, a modern Job whose wisdom, humor, and resilience inspired the lead character in "Fiddler on the Roof." And Motl is the spirited and mischievous nine-year-old boy who accompanies his family on a journey from their Russian shtetl to New York, and whose comical, poignant, and clear-eyed observations capture with r...View More...

The powerful story of an Untouchable in India's caste system, now with a new introduction With precision, vitality, and a fury that earned him praise as India's Charles Dickens, Mulk Raj Anand recreates in" Untouchable" what it was like to live on the fringes of society in pre-independence India. Bakha, an attractive, proud, and strong young man, is also an Untouchable, the lowest of the low in India's caste system. A sweeper and a toilet-cleaner, he must warn others on the street of his status so that he will not pollute them with his presence. In this urgent 1935 re-creation of one day ...View More...

For the centennial of its first publication: a new edition of a seminal work on the American immigrant experienceWeaving introspection with political commentary, biography with history, "The Promised Land," first published in 1912, brings to life the transformation of an Eastern European Jewish immigrant into an American citizen. Mary Antin recounts "the process of uprooting, transportation, replanting, acclimatization, and development that took place in her] own soul" and reveals the impact of a new culture and new standards of behavior on her family. A feeling of division--between Rus...View More...

Writing at the time of political and social crisis in Athens, Aristophanes was an eloquent yet bawdy challenger to the demagogue and the sophist. The Achanians is a plea for peace set against the background of the long war with Sparta. In Lysistrata a band of women tap into the awesome power of sex in order to end a war. The darker comedy of The Clouds satirizes Athenian philosophers, Socrates in particular, and reflects the uncertainties of a generation in which all traditional religious and ethical beliefs were being [email protected] What's something we can leverage against me...View More...

'As a youth ... I had prayed to you for chastity and said "Give me chastity and continence, but not yet"'The son of a pagan father and a Christian mother, Saint Augustine spent his early years torn between conflicting faiths and worldviews. His Confessions, written when he was in his forties, recount how, slowly and painfully, he came to turn away from his youthful ideas and licentious lifestyle, to become instead a staunch advocate of Christianity and one of its most influential thinkers. A remarkably honest and revealing spiritual autobiography, the Confessions also address fundamental...View More...

Listen to audio presented by Literary Affairs: Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility."View our feature on Jane Austen. Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love--and its threatened loss--the sisters learn that s...View More...

A witty and reflective look at a society driven by social ambition and lust for riches-in a brilliant new translation. Eugene wants to get on in the world. So he has come to Paris, where the streets teem with chancers, criminals, and social climbers-and everyone is out for what he can get. When he finds a place to stay at a shabby boarding house, he sees the potential to make a fortune in two beautiful, aristocratic women who visit the lonely old lodger Goriot. Could they bring Eugene the status and acceptance he craves? Nothing is as it seems in Paris, however, and soon he is over his he...View More...

'We are bought and sold like apes or monkeys, to be the sport of women, fools, and cowards, and the support of rogues'When Prince Oroonoko's passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony of Surinam. Oroonoko's noble bearing soon wins the respect of his English captors, but his struggle for freedom brings about his destruction. Inspired by Aphra Behn's visit to Surinam, Oroonoko (1688) reflects the author's romantic view of Native Americans as simple, superior peoples 'in the first state...View More...

When Prince Oroonoko's passion for the virtuous Imoinda arouses the jealousy of his grandfather, the lovers are cast into slavery and transported from Africa to the colony of Surinam. Oroonoko's noble bearing soon wins the respect of his English captors, but his struggle for freedom brings about his destruction. Inspired by Aphra Behn's visit to Surinam, Oroonoko reflects the author's romantic views of native peoples as being in "the first state of innocence, before man knew how to sin." The novel also reveals Behn's ambiguous attitude toward slavery: while she favored it as a means to stre...View More...